New Jersey has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the e-commerce giant of unlawfully exploiting its control over the third-party contractors that deliver its packages and driving down wages while suppressing competition.
The complaint centers on Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner program, a network of independent businesses that hire drivers to handle last-mile deliveries. State officials contend that the structure allows Amazon to dictate operating terms while shielding itself from direct responsibility for driver pay and working conditions.
According to the state, the model leaves delivery firms almost entirely dependent on Amazon for revenue, giving the company outsized leverage to set rates, impose performance demands and squeeze the margins of contractors and their workers alike.
The suit alleges this arrangement results in lower wages, unfair working conditions and a lack of genuine competition in the delivery market, harming both drivers and the small businesses that employ them.
Amazon has consistently defended the Delivery Service Partner program as a means of helping entrepreneurs build their own companies, and the firm has maintained that the drivers work for those independent partners rather than for Amazon itself.
The classification of gig and contract workers has become a recurring flashpoint for regulators and courts worldwide, as companies build large workforces through intermediaries while critics argue the model offloads costs and legal risk onto smaller operators.
The action adds to a growing list of legal challenges facing major technology platforms across the United States. State prosecutors have increasingly turned to antitrust tools to scrutinise the market power of dominant firms, echoing recent cases such as the mounting antitrust pressure on Google’s advertising business.
New Jersey’s attorney general has also pursued high-profile enforcement in other sectors, including a suit against Discord over child safety concerns, underscoring the state’s expanding regulatory posture toward large technology companies.
The lawsuit seeks remedies that could reshape how Amazon manages its contractor network, though the specific relief and potential penalties will be determined as the case proceeds.
The dispute is expected to draw close attention from labor advocates and industry observers, with the outcome likely to influence how gig-economy delivery models are regulated in other jurisdictions.